Black Diamond

the gesture.
    “We’re going to take a quick look around on foot,” J-J went on.
    “The radio is attached to the car,” Bruno said.
    “
Putain de merde
. We’ll get closer in the car, then Bruno here will take a look on foot, and I’ll stay close to him.”
    “And I’ll wait for the words Operation Deutschland Now,” said Verneuil.
    All lights switched off, J-J crept ahead slowly, cruising past the target building at just under the speed limit. All the lights were off. J-J turned left at the second corner and then left again, to find the way ahead blocked by a high wire fence surrounding a parking lot.
    “You take a quick look around,” said J-J. “I’ll go back to the main road so there’ll be no interference if I have to use the radio. If there’s an emergency, whistle and I’ll call in the troops. Otherwise I’ll wait till you get back, and I’ll keep the window open so I can hear you.”
    Bruno reached up to turn off the master switch for the overhead light. The last thing he needed now was a flare of a courtesy light as he opened the door. He got out of the car, leaning against the door to close it with minimum noise, and headed for the fence. There was little light, but the parking lot seemed huge, probably for the cinema patrons, and now mainly empty. He turned right, following the fence for another ninety feet, and then turned left until he recognized the looming hulk of the target building.
    Two large commercial trucks were parked at strange angles close to the building’s rear. Bruno followed the fence farther until he came to a double gate, chained and padlocked. He moved on, trying to get closer to the trucks. They seemed to have been positioned in a way that hid something else. He crept on, trying to make out what lay behind them. It was too tall for a car, too small for a truck, in a pale color, perhaps white. Then Bruno saw the dark shape of a large window and the outline of a narrow stepladder, and he realized it was a camper. Now that his eyes were attuned to the shape, he saw that there were three, no, four of the campers parked closely against the rear wall of the building.
    Campers, Isabelle, the campsite by the beach at Arcachon and the company recently bought in the north; the connections snapped together in his brain. He began jogging toward the main street, taking the risk of running past the front of the building to alert J-J that Operation Deutschland would have to be aborted.
    “Cancel it. Close it down,” he gasped into J-J’s window when he reached the car. He made an effort to calm his breathing. “Four campers are parked at the back. It’s the connection to Isabelle’s operation, the illegal immigrants and the campsite at Arcachon. If we raid them now, they’ll abort the landing.”
    “I get you,” said J-J, reaching back for the radio. Then he stopped. “On second thought, I won’t transmit. It could be misunderstood. I’ll drive back quietly, and we’ll tell Verneuil in person.”
    “Bordeaux won’t like it. They want the arrests.”
    “They’ll have to live with it,” J-J said. Bruno slipped into the passenger seat of the car, holding the door closed rather than slamming it.
    “Do you think you’d better call the brigadier?” Bruno asked. “If they have the campers assembled here already, it’s my guess they’ll be bringing the people ashore tonight. It must be pretty close.”
    “We wouldn’t want to ruin Isabelle’s big operation,” said J-J. Then he turned and grinned and elbowed Bruno in the ribs. “Mind you, if it does go wrong, she’ll probably be booted out of the minister’s office and sent back here to us. That wouldn’t be so bad.”
    “A humiliated Isabelle kicked back down here in disgrace wouldn’t be the same Isabelle,” said Bruno, wondering howJ-J could have been married for so many years and not understand the first thing about women. “She probably wouldn’t even want to see us.”
    An unmarked police car was parked along the street, and a cheerful Vietnamese was humming to himself in the weak December sunlight as he repainted the door to Tran’s restaurant. Bruno saw no other sign of the previous evening’s attack as he stepped inside and saw waiters laying the tables for lunch and a trail of deliveries of chickens and vegetables coming from the rear alley. Tran was receiving the goods, squeezing the cabbages and poking the breasts of the chickens as he ticked off the deliveries on the invoices. He